


Butterfly of the Night

by aghamora



Category: Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21636790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: Nobu purchases Sayuri's mizuage, but not for the reasons one might think.
Relationships: Nitta Sayuri/Nobu Toshikazu
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61





	Butterfly of the Night

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a minute since I wrote for this fandom (four or so years). I've recently fallen back into rereading the book/rewatching the film and decided I might dive back into fic as well, starting with digging up some old unpublished Nobu/Sayuri tidbits circa 2015 that have never seen the light of day or were taken down at some point. Enjoy!

**July, 1935**

_Mizuage_ is far too overpriced, if you ask him.

In fact, Nobu finds the practice as a whole distasteful, auctioning off the virginity of a young girl to a man twice her age or more, as if she is nothing but a doll to be bought and sold. Perhaps geisha view it as some sort of rite of passage, but it disgusts him, and never for even an instant has he considered buying a _mizuage_ himself. It takes a certain type of man to chase after an apprentice geisha’s virginity, and Nobu is glad not to be one of them.

Then what on earth had compelled him to bid for Sayuri’s _mizuage_?

He’d bid for it and won, throwing a grandiose amount of money at it – but money is no object for him; he’s got plenty of it. Yet unlike the men who opposed him – some doctor and the piggish Baron of Mameha’s – he has no intentions of claiming what he’s paid for. He has an unreasonable amount of affection for Sayuri, that much is true, but he’d never consider having her now, when she is still little more than a child. He feels foolishly protective of her, and if it takes ¥12,000 to keep her out of the lecherous hands of the Doctor or the Baron, then so be it.

He goes through the motions of drinking sake with Sayuri without protest, though the ceremony and the following dinner unnerve him, for everyone around him – including Sayuri herself – believe they know what his intentions are with her on this night. Sayuri looks lovely there, seated across the table from him at dinner in a black, five-crested formal kimono, but she hardly ever glances up from her food and spends most of the dinner poking around on her plate with her chopsticks. He supposes he can’t fault her for her misery, believing she’ll have to take ‘Mr. Lizard’ to bed with her on this night.

After the dinner ends, Sayuri and her dresser disappear and take a rickshaw to the inn on the grounds of the Nanzen-ji Temple which Nobu had arranged a few days prior. Nobu himself arrives at the inn sometime later and steps out of the car with a strange sort of heaviness settling into his stomach. The proprietress of the inn shows him inside to a large room near the back with walls of pale yellow silk, and upon rolling open the door in his typical forceful fashion, he finds Sayuri kneeling on the mats, waiting for him.

She glances up in surprise at the clattering of the door in its tracks, and when she does, he can see the fear in her eyes as clear as the stars. Outwardly, she maintains her well-trained façade of composure, but the instant their gazes meet, he realizes how truly scared she is. He’s always been able to read those eyes of hers, churning like water now with terror and far more expressive than she realizes. She has changed into a simple crimson kimono with her hands folded demurely in her lap, and again, he finds himself struck by how beautiful she looks. She seems almost otherworldly, as if she were floating.

A butterfly of the night, he muses. Strange creature of the day all shrouded in darkness. It seems to come to Sayuri naturally, inhabiting the shadows. The dim golden candlelight suits her.

After lowering her eyes and bowing to him in greeting, Sayuri crouches near the door to help him out of his shoes. Then, she rises to stand and goes to pour him a cup of sake from the bottle provided, fighting to steady her trembling hands as she does. Without speaking or looking at Nobu, she hands it to him, and he stands there drinking it in silence, watching as she approaches the two futons laid out side by side like a lamb approaching the slaughter. Her face goes through a number of changes, from hesitance, to fear, and then at last to grim acceptance as she reaches behind her back to untie her obi.

“Stop,” he tells her suddenly, and she looks in his direction, startled. “I’m not here for that tonight, Sayuri.”

Sayuri looks at him as if he has gone mad, and perhaps he has. “I… I don’t understand.”

For a time, he doesn’t answer and simply continues to stand there, sipping his drink and observing her. Though again she tries to hide it, Nobu can tell how relieved she is, and her shoulders droop slightly, relaxing their tension. Her hands release her obi and fall to her sides, and those grey eyes of hers peer over at him with bewilderment taking the place of fear. 

“But… Nobu-san has already paid so much money-”

“Yes, it was a lot of money, wasn’t it? Far too much, if you ask me.”

Before she can help herself, her curiosity gets the better of her. “Why?”

“It’s a vile thing, this whole idea of _mizuage_. A barbaric practice.”

“Please, Nobu-san, I don’t understand. Then why have you-”

“I’m certain Mameha has told you that I don’t much like geisha. And I don’t,” he says as he lights a cigarette and takes a drag of it. “But I can see that you’re not like the rest of them. I enjoy your company, Sayuri; very much so. Do you know who else was bidding for your _mizuage_?” She shakes her head, and he scoffs, unsure if he believes her. “Some doctor, and Mameha’s oaf of a _danna_. Well, I couldn’t stand the idea of you being auctioned off to those man like cattle. You're a human being, not some kind of toy. You deserve better than that.”

“So Nobu-san does not wish to…” she drifts off, as though unable to say it aloud.

He shakes his head, though on the inside he won’t deny how much he does, in fact, want her. She is such a thing of beauty, and perhaps a man like the Baron would press her down onto the futon and claim what he has paid for without a second thought – but Nobu knows at once that he cannot, not when Sayuri stands there looking at him with such trust. He is not a sentimental man, not prone to either emotion or empathy, but somehow, that simple look means more than any pleasure he could claim for himself tonight.

She gives him a small bow, as if in thanks. Very slowly, he puts out his cigarette and makes his way over to where she stands, placing his hand on her chin and urging it up, so that her eyes meet his. He feels the sudden, irrational urge to kiss her, but thinks better of it and instead moves away. Already she’d been frightened tonight; kissing her now would only frighten her more.

“Sit down,” Nobu says after a lengthy moment of silence. “I’ll pour you a drink.”

Sayuri does as he says and kneels at the little table in the corner of the room, beneath a window that overlooks the garden and a little stream. He sits nearby, so there is only the corner of the table between them, and pours her a cup of sake just as he said he would.

After she drinks a bit and begins to look markedly less terrified, Sayuri looks over at him once more. “Are you not angry, Nobu-san?”

“Why?”

“You… paid a great deal of money for this.”

“I don’t have much of a use for money. I’ve got far more than I need.”

“I…” she gulps, lowering her eyes. “I owe Nobu-san a great debt.”

He huffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t owe me anything.”

They speak for a while longer, if only to convince the maids and her dresser that they are doing what they are expected to be doing, and he is even able to draw a nervous laugh or two from her, when before she’d been as petrified and stiff as an ancient tree. Then, after nearly an hour has gone by, he glances down at his watch and rises to stand abruptly.

“I’ve got to go,” he informs her. “I have a meeting in half an hour.”

Confused, she gets to her feet as well. “Nobu-san isn’t planning to stay overnight?”

He knows it is typical for a _mizuage_ patron to stay the night at the inn and depart in the morning, and if he were like other men, that is precisely what he would do. But he isn’t like other men, and because the proprietress is familiar with him, he knows she will likely think little of it, for he has never been the kind of person who lingers long after accomplishing what he has come for. Nobu shakes his head, and Sayuri looks at the two futons in the center of the room, made up with crisp white sheets that have been left unused and unstained.

“There isn’t any blood on the sheets,” she murmurs with dismay. “The maids will be suspicious.”

Nobu gives a _humph_ of agreement, knowing at once that she is right. The maids will notice and gossip, since it is unheard of for a man to purchase a _mizuage_ and then refuse to claim his prize. He knows Gion well enough; rumors will almost certainly spread that there is something horribly wrong with Sayuri if the man who bought her _mizuage_ neglected to actually touch her, and that he will not tolerate.

With a frown, he crosses the room and picks up a little knife sitting on a platter of peaches and other snacks the maids had provided for them. Then, he walks back over to the futons and stands over them, with Sayuri watching him all the while. Nobu grits his teeth and, after bracing himself for the pain, presses the knife into his palm – not deep enough to truly harm him, but certainly deep enough to draw a substantial amount of blood. Once he has done so to his satisfaction, he holds his hand over the futons and lets the blood drip down onto the sheets.

He hears Sayuri give a gasp of horror. “Oh, Nobu-san!”

“If they want blood,” he remarks simply, unfazed by the pain, “I’ll give them blood.”

“Nobu-san mustn’t hurt himself because of me!”

“I’ve got enough scars already,” he jokes half-heartedly. “What is one more? Go find one of the maids and ask her for bandages if you can’t stand the sight.”

Hurriedly, Sayuri leaves the room to locate a maid, and after letting his blood drip long enough to leave a convincing stain, he lets her bandage the wound. Nobu finds her looking up at him curiously every so often while she winds the fabric around his hand, as if she is still trying to discern why on earth he would go to so much trouble for her. He finds himself wondering the same thing, but when he meets her eyes and feels his heart flutter foolishly inside him, he remembers in an instant why he has done all this.

For Sayuri. For this girl he finds himself wanting to shelter from the world, even though he knows, in the end, his efforts will be in vain.

Once she’s bandaged his hand, she escorts him to the door and helps him once more into his shoes and coat. She bows farewell to him, and he does the same, yet just as he is about to step out into the night, her voice sounds out to stop him.

“Nobu-san must forgive me… but I still don’t understand. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why have you gone to so much trouble for my sake? Why would you not take what you’ve bought?”

Nobu looks at Sayuri for a good while, drinking in the sight of her: her face, painted white and as starkly contrasting with the darkness as the moon; her lips, blood red and blooming like rose petals; her kimono, clinging to the curves of her body like a glove. Yes, Nobu ponders, men would think him mad for doing what he’s done tonight – and perhaps he is mad, for Sayuri has made him thus, changed him into a man he no longer recognizes. The worst part of it all is that he has no desire to change back.

“If you are ever to give yourself to me, Sayuri,” he finally says to her. “I want it to be because you want to, and not because I’ve _bought_ you.”

With that, Nobu turns and walks away. Though it is tempting to do so, he doesn’t look back. He isn’t the sort to indulge in backward glances.


End file.
